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Thursday, 31 January 2013

Small Cells, Big Impact - From AT&T Blog

We plan to roll out more than 40,000 small cells by the end of 2015. To do this, we’ve already begun testing the technology in the field with our first trial deployments in the areas of Crystal Lake Park, Mo. and Waukesha, Wis.

In Crystal Lake Park, a suburb of St. Louis, we deployed metrocells in an outdoor residential area with poor coverage due to geographical challenges. The small cells have shown to be an effective solution, allowing for a 17 percent increase in mobile traffic on our network where the solution was deployed and boosting the outdoor area to nearly 100 percent usable coverage.

We also trialed the small cells in one of our previously problematic buildings in Waukesha, Wis., and generated equally impressive results. The trial decreased the dropped call rate in the building, allowed for a 15 percent increase in mobile traffic on our network where the solution was deployed and also resulted in nearly 100 percent usable coverage.

Additionally, at AT&T Labs we are exploring the science behind the service, with research that enables us to advance our capabilities for managing small cell coverage and how they will interwork with our existing cell sites.

With two trial deployments in the books and our work at AT&T Labs, we are expecting great things as we build toward a broader small cell rollout later in 2013. For now, one thing is clear – although the cells are small, their advantages are anything but.